Working with Fungi, Making with Microorganisms: Interspecific Collaboration and Creativity

In the last years, there has been a democratization of practices harnessing living (micro)organisms to produce eco- friendly goods, e.g., biodegradable materials that are made using vegetative part of a fungus (mycelium) or symbiotic cultures of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY). Those post-Pasteurian (Paxson, 2008) practices are great examples of activities that are increasingly being studied as shedding light on microbes as allies in human projects instead of dangerous pathogens only. It is nevertheless important to note that in this movement, dualisms must not be reproduced as it is not a matter of good versus bad microbes; rather, it is one of complex contingencies. Decentering the perspective and seriously considering microbes as actors invites us to reflect on the implications of some notions central to the social sciences, and to anthropology in particular. This paper takes one particular ethnographic case of an ongoing research — involving architects and designers working together with mycelium to make an artifact, contamination from another fungal specie, and “surprise” as a key element in those human-microbes relationships — as a starting point to reflect on the concept of creativity. Following the argument of Hallam and Ingold (2007) that creativity is more about improvisation than it is about innovation, and that focusing on the outcome rather than on the process is “backward reading symptomatic of modernity”, this paper looks at moments of making that involve humans and microbes. By asking if microbes can be “co-creators”, and therefore by examining how does working with or collaborating with fungi/bacteria operate in practice, the question at stake is the one of non-human agency, its definition, its perception, and its consideration.